Gay Marriage

  • Morning Docket: 07.20.22
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 07.20.22

    * It wasn’t ever really about zygotes: Candidate throws dirt on abortion because women are better off barefoot and pregnant. [Vanity Fair]

    * 17 Congress members leave a protest with a photo op. [CBS News]

    * Doctor who helped the 10 year old rape victim forced to cross state lines sues Indiana’s AG for defamation. [FOX 59]

    * I’ve never met a Co. like you before: Meta sues Meta for being too…Meta? [The Verge]

    * Some House Republicans are civil enough to vote to protect gay marriage. Let’s see how the Senate responds. [Politico]

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  • Non-Sequiturs: 06.30.17
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 06.30.17

    Ed. note: Early wishes for a happy July 4th weekend! We’ll be back on Wednesday, July 5 (barring unforeseen news).

    * I don’t know that free speech is under cultural attack, as this post argues. But I do think people are using lawsuits to bash speech they don’t like. Instead of lecturing people about the sacred right of Nazis to intimidate people on Twitter, I’d rather the First Amendment crowd came up with a real regime of sanctions for people who bring lawsuits against clearly protected speech. I just don’t know that the Deplorable fanboys would recognize that as a sufficient way to fight for their freedom to talk out of their asses. [Popehat]

    * The Fifth Circuit has now conferred qualified immunity on expert witnesses, deployed to spout whatever nonsense the government thinks will help them gain a conviction. The Democrat who runs on a criminal justice reform platform that included changing the rules around qualified immunity would probably get my vote. Instead they’ll probably run a Goldman executive with an innovative plan to retrain bigoted hill people for the hi-tech jobs of the future. [Simple Justice]

    * What Trump is actually trying to do with his voter fraud investigation is horrifying. But Professor Rick Hasen says it won’t work, and I’m going to trust him because I do not want to get pissed off about a whole new thing this close to a long weekend. [Slate]

    * Texas isn’t sure that same-sex marriage means that same-sex couples get marriage benefits. Sigh. Look, Texas is going to lose its fight against gay people, eventually. YOU HEAR THAT YOU HAT WEARIN’ COWBOYS? Gay people are going to kick your ass and have sex in your Alamo. [Texas Tribune]

    * Based on the settlement data, The Root came up with a methodology to calculate the worth of a black life. Ballpark, the state pays about $3,364,875 per family for the right to kill us without criminal accountability. If you’ve got thoughts about how the state spends too much money in settlements, keep them to yourself. [The Root]

    * Stay safe out there this long weekend. The Texas Law Hawk has some fireworks safety tips. [Texas Law Hawk]

    * Checking in with the Alt-Right, I could go with all the stories about how people have called Kellyanne Conway “ugly,” which is apparently the Alt-Right defense for the president mocking Mika Brzezinski? But this headline is just too good: “Germany Surrenders to Trump, Waters Down G20 Climate Plan #Winning” They’re making water puns, y’all. They are defiant. You can’t even blame the Earth for trying to kill all of us. [Breitbart]

  • Morning Docket: 06.30.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 06.30.17

    * Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams pleads guilty to accepting a bribe, ending his ongoing federal corruption trial and his tenure as DA — and sending him straight to jail, since Judge Paul Diamond denied bail. [ABA Journal]

    * The Trump administration moves forward on implementing the travel ban (and has reversed its earlier determination that being engaged to marry an American doesn’t count as “a bona fide” connection to this country). [New York Times]

    * Colorado baker Jack Phillips, petitioner in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case that the Supreme Court will hear next Term, explains his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. [How Appealing]

    * DLA Piper, hit by a major ransomware attack earlier this week, endures its third consecutive day without email. [Law360]

    * And DLA isn’t the only Biglaw firm with big weaknesses in cybersecurity, as Ian Lopez reports. [Law.com]

    * Lawyer turned television host Greta Van Susteren has been let go by MSNBC (after just six months). [Vanity Fair]

    * The tragic case of Charlie Gard comes to an end: the European Court of Human Rights declines to review prior court rulings refusing to let the terminally ill 10-month-old boy travel to the U.S. for experimental treatment. [Washington Post]

    * Drs. John Eastman and Sohan Dasgupta break down the Trinity Lutheran case. [Claremont Institute]

  • Non-Sequiturs: 06.28.17
    Non-Sequiturs

    Non-Sequiturs: 06.28.17

    * Very interesting piece by Mark Joseph Stern on Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s dissent in Pavan v. Smith (aka the “LGBT parents on birth certificates” case). It seems to me that Justice Gorsuch’s statement is technically correct — the Arkansas Department of Health (1) was okay with giving the named plaintiffs their birth certificates and (2) conceded that in the artificial-insemination context, gay couples can’t be treated differently than straight couples (see the Arkansas Supreme Court opinion, footnote 1 and page 18) — but it’s either confusing, at best, or misleading and disingenuous, at worst (the view of Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, counsel to the plaintiffs). [Slate]

    * Speaking of Justice Gorsuch, Adam Feldman makes some predictions about what we can expect from him in the future, based on his first few opinions. [Empirical SCOTUS]

    * Professor Rick Hasen has made up his mind on this: “Gorsuch is the new Scalia, just as Trump promised.” [Los Angeles Times]

    * The VC welcomes a new co-conspirator: Professor Sai Prakash, a top scholar of constitutional law and executive power. [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]

    * Now that Harvard Law School will accept GRE scores in lieu of LSAT scores, what do law school applicants need to know about the two tests? [Law School HQ]

    * And what do Snapchat users need to know about the app’s new “Snap Map” feature? Cyberspace lawyer Drew Rossow flags potential privacy problems. [WFAA]

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  • Morning Docket: 04.13.17
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 04.13.17

    * Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the nation’s first female Muslim judge and the first African-American woman to serve on New York’s highest court, was found dead in the Hudson River. We’ll have more on this later. [New York Daily News]

    * The Ukraine-related activities of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are under legal scrutiny — and one of his daughters, lawyer Andrea Manafort, described some of her father’s actions as “legally questionable.” [New York Times]

    * Hawaii says “aloha” to the Ninth Circuit in its challenge to Trump Travel Ban 2.0 — and seeks initial en banc review, bypassing a three-judge panel. [ABA Journal]

    * So the filibuster is now dead for SCOTUS nominees; are blue slips for lower-court nominees next? [Roll Call via How Appealing]

    * Melania Trump settles her defamation litigation with the Daily Mail, getting an apology, a retraction, coverage of her legal fees, and what her lawyer Charles Harder describes as “millions of dollars in damages.” [New York Law Journal]

    * Biglaw firms aren’t the only workplaces with gender pay gaps; it’s an issue for in-house legal departments too, including Google’s. [Corporate Counsel]

    * Seriously, North Carolina? After its half-hearted repeal of the “bathroom bill,” three lawmakers in the state want to ban gay marriage. [WNCN]

    * Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit seems to be a fan of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s views on Chevron deference. [Law.com]

    * And Justice Elena Kagan will be throwing a party to welcome Justice Gorsuch to the Court. [Washington Post via How Appealing]

  • Morning Docket: 12.09.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 12.09.16

    * President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, is a critic of the Obama Administration’s regulation in this area (and he’s a former litigator, interestingly enough). [Washington Post]

    * Judge Bill Pryor (11th Cir.), a top SCOTUS contender in a Trump Administration, is beloved by conservatives — but confirming him could be a battle. [Bloomberg BNA via How Appealing]

    * The Arkansas Supreme Court rules that married lesbian couples can’t put the names of both spouses on their children’s birth certificates. [WSJ Law Blog]

    * SEC enforcement chief Andrew Ceresney will leave the agency by the end of this year; where might he wind up? [Law.com]

    * Governor Andrew Cuomo met with the feds in connection with the corruption case brought against some of his former aides. [New York Times]

    * Michael Jordan’s latest court victory — in an IP case in China. [Bloomberg]

    * Alabama prisoner Ronald Smith is executed after the Supreme Court denies a stay, leaving SCOTUS review of the state’s unique “judicial override” system for another day. [New York Times via How Appealing]

  • Morning Docket: 10.03.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 10.03.16

    * The New York Times has obtained Donald Trump’s tax records from 1995, revealing a nearly $916 million loss that would have enabled him to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period. Marc Kasowitz, name partner of Kasowitz Benson, represents Trump, and has threatened the paper with “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action” for its publication of his client’s tax records. [New York Times]

    * George Mason University will host a grand opening ceremony this week for the twice renamed Antonin Scalia School of Law Antonin Scalia Law School — a ceremony that five SCOTUS justices will reportedly attend — and some students and faculty are planning to protest the Koch brothers’ funding of scholarships by wearing red tape over their mouths to symbolize their voices being taken from them. [Big Law Business]

    * Katherine Magbanua, the woman who is suspected of connecting Florida State University law professor Dan Markel’s alleged killers, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, with the family of Markel’s ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, has been arrested on murder charges. According to police, she has “received numerous benefits from the Adelsons since Markel’s murder.” We’ll have more on this later today. [Tallahassee Democrat]

    * According to Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida, Orlando-based firm Butler & Hosch violated the WARN Act when it closed suddenly in May 2015 and conducted mass layoffs of more than 700 employees without giving them 60 days of advance notice. The firm, which is bankruptcy, could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages. We may have more on this later today. [Orlando Sentinel]

    * Following the embarrassment that was former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner’s light sentence in the sexual assault of an unconscious woman at his school, California Gov. Jerry Brown has broadened the state’s legal definition of rape to include penetration with a foreign object, mandate prison time if the victim was unconscious at the time of the assault, and forbid judges from granting probation or parole in such cases. [Reuters]

    * “Frankly, USD has been a bit behind in that, in part, up until 2014, we had no problem with the bar exam. When you’re hitting in the high 80s or 90s, you don’t worry about much.” Unofficial results from the South Dakota bar exam are out, and after years of declines in passage rates for graduates of South Dakota Law, administrators are ready to take action now that only about 50 percent of graduates passed the test. [Argus Leader]

    * “I was empty and then this woman walked into my life. I didn’t think it would happen again and it did. She is it.” LGBT rights pioneer Edie Windsor, the plaintiff whose Supreme Court case rendered DOMA unconstitutional in 2013 and laid the groundwork for the high court to declare that marriage equality was a fundamental right just two years later, remarried in New York last week. Our very best wishes! [New York Times]

  • Morning Docket: 09.29.16
    Morning Docket

    Morning Docket: 09.29.16

    * “The ballot-selfie prohibition is like ‘burn[ing down] the house to roast the pig.'” Just in time for Election 2016, the First Circuit has struck down New Hampshire’s ballot selfie ban as unconstitutional, citing the fact that it curtailed voters’ free speech, and on top of that, the state was unable to identify any complaints of vote buying or intimidation. [POLITICO]

    * Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who instructed probate judges to adhere to the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, even after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling, says the ethics charges he faces are “ridiculous” since he never “encourage[d] anyone to defy a federal court or state court order.” [WSJ Law Blog]

    * Wiley Rein lost two practice group leaders to DLA Piper this week. The firm, known for its media, telecom, government contracts, and IP practices, no longer has partners in charge of its telecom group or its wireless group, but it claims these departures were anticipated, and the practice groups were merged ahead of time. [Big Law Business]

    * Cha-ching! The Caesars bankruptcy is ending, which means the “fee frenzy” for lawyers who were working on the case is about to dry up as well. Nine law firms have been involved in the case since the company first filed for bankruptcy in January 2015, and hundreds of millions of dollars of legal fees have already been assessed. [Am Law Daily]

    * Many jurisdictions adopted the Uniform Bar Exam for the July 2016 administration of the bar exam, and it seems like it may have had the opposite effect on test-takers than what was intended. Graduates of this law school saw their bar exam passage rate drop by 13 percent since last year. We’ll have more on this later today. [Albequerque Journal]